> 1. People — individuals and companies — try to game the tax system at least as much as they do pollution regulations, and probably much more so because tax obligations are largely self-reported with only sporadic auditing to catch cheaters and gamers.

> 2. Certain political elements are always trying to defund the tax auditors (e.g., the IRS). We might well ask why that is.

Tax the petrol itself. That works reasonably well in most of the world. No need for complicated individual audits etc.

> 3. Politically, tax hikes are always harder to get through Congress — and to keep in force — than sensible standards for products and behaviors that voters can see are beneficial to them (e.g., pollution prohibitions).

I don't know. We kicked off the whole discussion because the standards you have are NOT sensible.